<p>People always forget it, but the Ivy League is a FOOTBALL CONFERENCE!!! That's it. If anything, some of those schools like Cornell are overrated because of the name recognition of being in the Ivvvvvvvvvvy League.</p>
<p>The fact that WUSTL sends out a lot of mail has nothing to do with it being overrated. They have a large endowment, and they use a lot of that money on sending out mail to try and increase their name recognition. US News doesn't rank on amount of mail sent, so this entire conversation is irrelevant.</p>
<p>I think most applicants do some research in the school besides looking at their mailings. Plus, the WUSTL materials do include average SAT scores and GPAs. Most people would see those and realize if they were WHOLY unqualified.</p>
<p>What might cause unqualified applicants is the fact that it's so easy to apply with the Common Application. The thing is, it's just as easy to apply to many of the Ivies on Common App, including Yale!</p>
<p>A friend of mine (she is unqualified) got a lot of mailings from WashU and swore up and down that they wanted her and that she would be going there in the fall, then after researching...she realized that she wouldn't get accepted and didn't apply. Im sure this happens to a lot of others so the whole argument about qualified students not applying because they got a mailing is stupid. People aren't gonna waste app fee money when they know they're not gonna get something and they usually find this out when they start reaearching schools. If a student just applies to a college without even looking into the school and stuff they they deserve to get rejected. Students with low stats apply here as reaches just like other students apply to ivies as reaches. sometimes people just want to see if they can walk on water</p>
<p>WashU is just a school that is steadily trying to improve by increasing the rate of their already stellar academic body year after year. To do this, they gotta recruit students...nothing wrong with that imo</p>
<p>I happen to think that Washu and Notre Dame are unbelievable schools that are if anything underrated. Yes, Washu mail alot. Nothing wrong with that. If you don't have it, you still don't get in. And no, Case Western Reserve and Kenyon are not underrated- they are right where they should be. I'm sick of talking about this.. I'm going to go eat Captain Crunch.</p>
<p>coming from a student at WashU. washU is NOT overrated. Its only easy for people who don't want to challenge themselves there. I thought I was pretty smart when it came to academics, but there, in the hard classes I had a heck of a time just trying to hold up to the vigorous work schedule. If you are aiming to just do mediocre, WashU may seem easy, but I'm sure no one wants straight C's on their transcripts.</p>
<p>This entire thread is utter speculation. Nobody but the admissions committees at Wash U. and the Ivies know what their applicant and acceptance pools look like. To anyone who claims that Wash U or any place else sends out tons of ads and thereby boosts their applicant pool with unqualified applicants to lower their acceptance rate, I say, "show me the applicant pool data"!</p>
<p>I was admited to WashU last week, but If I am admited to Columbia I will go there.
Except for Medicine WashU is a second rate school according to USNEWS.
Medicine 3
Bussiness 32
Law 24
Economics 27
Engineering 34
Education 40</p>
<p>Mr. Visitor1, your data is wrong for the UNDERGRADUATE business program. You listed the graduate program. </p>
<p>I looked this up for business since I was accepted there. I did not look up your other statistics, so if someone from those schools would like to fact check, please go ahead.</p>
<p>First of all, here are the undergraduate business programs ranked by US News:</p>
<p>Rank/School Peer
assessment
score
(5.0 = highest)
1. University of Pennsylvania (Wharton) 4.8
2. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology (Sloan) 4.6
3. University of CaliforniaBerkeley (Haas) * 4.5
University of MichiganAnn Arbor * 4.5
5. Carnegie Mellon University (PA) 4.2
New York University (Stern) 4.2
U. of North CarolinaChapel Hill (Kenan-Flagler) * 4.2
University of TexasAustin (McCombs) * 4.2
9. Univ. of Southern California (Marshall) 4.1
University of Virginia (McIntire) * 4.1
11. Indiana UniversityBloomington (Kelley) * 4.0
12. Cornell University (NY) 3.9
Purdue Univ.West Lafayette (Krannert) (IN)* 3.9
U. of IllinoisUrbana-Champaign * 3.9
Univ. of MinnesotaTwin Cities (Carlson) * 3.9
Univ. of WisconsinMadison * 3.9
Washington University in St. Louis (Olin) 3.9</p>
<p>Washington University is tied for 12th. Just one rank after its composite rank of 11.</p>
<p>12 or 32 still second rate, because in undergraduate Harvard, Yale, Northwestern (Kellog), etc aren't included. The real quality of a business program is the MBA.</p>
<p>the USNEWS rankings don't really mean much anyway. because they are so easy to manipulate i know at my school my GC doesn't recommend using them to make any major decisions concerning the college application process.</p>